Hydration
The fountain of health and fitness
On average, we are over 60% water and use water for numerous essential functions in and throughout the body. We need these functions to give us the best chance to train well as well as give our body the best environment to recover and adapt afterwards. If we want our brain and body to keep up with our day as well as our training, we need to keep it hydrated.
We only have a limited pool of water to carry out all of the essential functions in the body including our fitness ones, the amount of water we drink each day. If we are not supplying our body with the water it needs, then we are not going to be able to function at our best. Our body will manage our output and downregulate our biological processes if we do not get enough water. This directly impacts our body’s energy demands, our performance when training as well as when recovering afterwards.
Keeping hydrated helps :
Aid our skeletal system by lubricating the spine and joints keeping them safer and more comfortable in all of our daily movements including our fitness training.
Aid our circulatory system by maintaining blood thickness to keep the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to our brain and body, especially our working muscles. It also then helps with the recovery and adaptation process in the same way.
Aid our lymphatic system to flush waste products from our working muscles allowing us to keep training intensity up, as well as help post training recovery by the removal of waste products from training as well as general living.
Aid body temperature regulation allowing us to ramp it up for training but also help us down regulate body temperature at night allowing us to enter a good nights sleep.
Aid digestion for pre-training energy and post-training recovery because our food needs to be maintained in a solution to be broken down ready to be shipped off around the body for use.
As well as much more
Simply put, there is a reason why we die of dehydration before we die of starvation. Drinking enough water is vitally important to being a functioning healthy human.
If we do not give our body enough water to carry out all of its functions, then our brain has to portion out its water supply meaning that some bodily functions won’t get their necessary quota, causing dehydration and decreased function. Dehydration is also a stress on the body because the body has to work harder than normal in some areas. For example, our blood gets thicker when we are dehydrated, meaning that our heart has to work harder with every single pump to move the same volume of blood. This could mean that more stress hormones than normal need to be released to meet the same demand. Remember from stress management, harder work, means more wear and tear on the body, adding to its overall stress load.
Thankfully, the solution is simply to drink enough water. This is the easiest of our recovery strategies to maintain but can often be the easiest overlooked too. Lots of factors influence our body’s state of hydration so it can be difficult to say how much water is enough.
This is why I believe the best advice we can follow, is simply to keep an eye on our urine as this gives constant feedback on our hydration status. We should aim to maintain levels 1-3 below by adjusting water intake accordingly every time we urinate. When urine is darker, prioritise drinking some water straight away to rehydrate and then keep topping up to remain hydrated.
The NHS urine colour chart
healthy hydration
Our level of hydration includes all the liquids we consume in our day including our food as we are able to utilise the water in the foods we eat too. The most effective way to stay hydrated is to simply drink enough water to keep our urine a healthy colour and is the easiest of our lifestyle factors to manage. It can be achieved through keeping water with us at all times as a cue to remember to keep drinking water throughout the day.
Additional liquids including tea, coffee and smoothies can also help keep us hydrated as they include water in their recipes. Alcohol and soft drinks on the other hand can contribute to dehydration as although they are a liquid, they don’t contain water and cannot help with our bodily functions. Balancing alcohol and soft drink intake with water intake can help mitigate some of the negative effects these liquids may have on us. Overall health includes our mental and social health so alcohol and soft drinks can be consumed in moderation, just not instead of water.
Drinking enough water is usually the first health change I advise all clients as it also the easiest to maintain and most accessible. Drinking enough water is vital for both health and fitness but can be balanced with the enjoyment of all other drinks.
Important
All of the liquids we consume can be abused, drinking too much water, too much caffeine, too many soft drinks, too much alcohol, can all negatively impact our body, our health and our fitness. If you are worried about any of your liquid intakes, see a health professional to talk about it.